The Church of England: Britain's State Church
The Church of Privilege
"I accept Your Majesty as the sole source of ecclesiastical, spiritual and temporal power."
The oath of loyalty sworn by Church of England bishops
Church and Clergy Profit from Enslavement
In 2023 the Financial Times reported that forensic accountants and historians had found that the state church had profited by more than £1bn in current terms from enslavement. The Anglicans promised to invest £100mn in initiatives to address these "past wrongs"An independent committee chaired by one of the church's bishops has stated that the £100m offered is not enough. It wants the anti-democratic church to provide £1bn for an "impact investment fund".
The Queen Anne's Bounty was the primary source of this wealth. It was set up in 1704 to help poor clerics and in 1948 transferred to the Church Commissioners.
The Bounty received about £1.21bn from slave trade related sources. Most of this was from shares in the South Sea Company, a state-sponsored business that was involved in the Atlantic slave trade.
By 1739, when the South Sea Company withdrew from the slave trade, the Church had company annuities valued at £433mn in present terms.
The Bounty also received cash and land that likely came from people connected to enslavement. The accountants estimated that up to 1850 it received £359,242 from such people. They valued the Bounty at £482 in present money terms.
Slaves to the Church
In the eighteenth century slaves on the Codrington Plantations in Barbados were for many years branded with the word "Society" by means of a hot iron. The society concerned was the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG).The plantations had been bequeathed to the SPG by their former owners. When the Society took over, management of the plantations was overseen by a board of trustees. That board was headed by the Church of England's Archbishop of Canterbury and a committee of other state church bishops.
Britain's state church only gave up its Barbados slaveholdings after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1883 was passed. It was paid £8,823 in compensation, which was given to Codrington College, established to educate slaves.
3 The funding of the faithful.
4 The case for disestablishment.
5 Who's for and who's against.
6 An alternative way: the American way.
7 The road to privilege - a short history of the Church of England.
1 A Church in bed with the state.